'Manikins' to simulate crisis events for St. David's paramedic students

Posted by Jayme BlaschkeUniversity News Service June 6, 2014

High-tech 'manikins' from Texas State University will help train paramedic students from the EMTS Academy and St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center Paramedic Program June 14.

The students will participate in six life-like scenarios using the high-fidelity manikins from the St. David’s School of Nursing Simulation Lab at Texas State's Round Rock campus. On most other days, the manikins can be found lying in hospital beds. The manikins have the ability to talk, exhibit rise and fall of the chest to simulate breathing, have heart and lung sounds and can accommodate an array of emergency procedures.

To provide a real world environment for the paramedic students, these manikins will be placed in settings similar to what EMS personnel encounter. For example, one manikin will be lying on the floor in a cramped bathroom with no lighting in the nursing school's home care unit to simulate a heroin overdose in an apartment with no electricity. Another patient will be found lying on the floor of the nursing building lobby having just "fallen" from a 20-foot ladder and suffering a spinal injury. The paramedic students will have support from other advanced EMT and EMT students to make the simulations progress as true to reality as possible.

This is the second year that the nursing school and EMTS Academy have collaborated to hold the simulation lab day. The six scenarios were developed by EMTS Academy Director Matt Nealand and nursing school simulation lab staff members Tiffany Holmes and Ryan Douglas.

"The best way to learn is to actually do it. The second best way is to simulate it," said Nealand. "Working with the School of Nursing Simulation Lab allows us to create realistic critical airway training for our paramedic students and prepares them for their internships this summer."

The St. David’s School of Nursing, which opened in August 2010, offering bachelor of science in nursing degrees as well as master's-level family nurse practitioner degrees. The EMTS Academy and Round Rock Medical Paramedic Program trains paramedics at Texas State's Round Rock campus.

Media coverage is invited. Participants and instructors will be available for interviews.